Maverick filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is still adamant that he will retire after he reaches 50 according to Matt Damon, who is currently shooting the psychological thriller Contagion with the director. Over the past few years Soderbergh has expressed his distaste for the way the film medium is going and that in the next few years he’ll have gone as far as he wants to go as a director.
Matt Damon said in an interview on the set of Contagion that:
He wants to paint and he says he’s still young enough to have another career. He’s kind of exhausted with everything that interested him in terms of form. He’s not interested in telling stories. Cinema interested him in terms of form and that’s it. He says, “If I see another over-the-shoulder shot, I’m going to blow my brains out.” After this movie we’re doing Liberace next summer with Michael Douglas, and then he might do one more movie after that with George [Clooney], and then after that he’s retiring.
So does this mean then that his final project with Clooney will be the much rumored Man From UNCLE remake? Who knows? Interesting way to go out, but who knows if it is successful, and Clooney still has marquee value, could a franchise be on the cards?
In terms of Soderbergh retiring it breaks my heart heavy that a director as versatile as he is will soon be bowing out of the game. His films are consistently different and more obscure than the next, while he often makes missteps within his own experiments there is always a degree of interest to be found in them. It will be a great shame the day that Soderbergh exits the world of cinema.
